"They're coming for your..." Topic

……3D printers.

link

link

They're.

Not necessarily, GPT.

Sadly, I can't read the grey box of the OP but I'm sure he wouldn't make so egregious an error & he *actually* means, "their coming for your…".

If so, it is a noun phrase about the event of an arrival.
eg "I was surprised by their coming for your birthday."

Arrivals are often happy events & I applaud SMM for his possible good news story.

Ochoin, wouldn't that be "…they are coming"?

Or

Are you going to their party?

English was never my best subject, but I'd swear "their" is specifically used as a possessive.

I was lately in a brick and mortar hobby store and saw a rack of white boxes on racks whose contents I was unable to readily identify. Upon closer examination I was able to resolve they contained various spools of printer medium of various thicknesses and colors.

I imagine my slack jawed, befuddled, visage must have closely approximated that of a Neanderthal watching a Homo Sapien nocking an atlatl.

Gubbment man came today wanting printer. I pointed at Hewlett Packard in corner. Him say wrong printer. He say printer makes things, not images. His magic frightened me. I lit sacred Devil's Lettuce and used smoke to drive him away. Me fear he come back soon.

World changing too fast.

, man up and read what he has to say.

He's providing links about states passing laws that would make it illegal to own or sell 3D printers that can use third-party firmware. The claim is that it will somehow prevent people from making "ghost guns" (even though the latter are already illegal). Which is moronic, as finding away around such software blocks is as close as your favorite hacker group on Reddit. In the meantime, the legislation (according to the article) would cripple owners of 3D printers by allowing the manufacturer to render existing printers obsolete and non-functional with a software update— not just "planned" obsolescence, but forced obsolescence. A manufacturer could also, under this legislation, use firmware to limit consumables to the manufacturer's proprietary supplies (filament, resins, "ink") rather than being able to use cheaper third-party sources. Again, these are the claims made in the articles; whether they are valid or not, I don't have the experience or knowledge of 3D printers to comment or confirm.

For the record, I'm not sure such a law will pass the courts, as it potentially violates the Interstate Commerce Clause of the US Constitution. (For those ignorant about that, it's the section of the Constitution which gives Congress the sole authority over the trade of goods and services across state lines. This was one of the primary reasons the Constitution was created, so it's A Really Big Deal in US courts.) As the laws in question would place burdens on the residents of other states, I'd expect the Federal Courts to toss this nonsense on the very first lawsuit.

Still, I can't be sure of that, either. Interesting reading in any case.

An easier, legal route would be to designate 3D-printed guns as 'zip guns' (pretty sure those are already illegal in most jurisdictions.)
Even easier for CA is to ban 3D printing entirely because "cancer risks"…

The battle against incorrect use of homophones is already lost. Spellcheck accepts them, and in the 21st Century, that's the only thing anyone cares about.

As for the 3D printers, next up will be a ban on any way to create a document on a stand-alone computer, because it could be used to create hate speech. (AI will monitor all networked computers for disinformation, misinformation and malinformation.)

The whole "ghost gun" thing is a waste of concern. Criminals tend to get ahold of real guns far easier, quicker, and cheaper than they could trying to make a gun themselves out of parts. (Seriously, can you imagine your average "gangsta" punk trying to operate a 3D printer? )

So if that's the claimed purpose of the bill, someone behind it is either a moron, delusional, or assumes the voters are— or possibly all three. And that doesn't rule out corruption on the part of state legislators and certain governors who shall not be named.

The more I look at this, the more suspicious I become of the bill.

It's another case of people who don't understand something trying to regulate it.

I'll buy myself a nice new printer, maybe two, the day before the ban. After that I guess we build our own. It was possible ten years ago, easier now, and will be even easier when the time comes.

The real problem is all the industry, innovation, startups and so on that will happen somewhere else.